Love Me Carefully

by A. C. Arthur

  “You’re probably right.” Terrell grinned, pinched her pert little nose. “I’m starting to get used to you being right.”

  * * *

  Rosie stepped up onto the ramp that had been extended for passengers. Her white tennis shoes were in stark contrast to the red carpet lining the steel plank. Craning her neck, she stared up at the massive ship she and Donald were now boarding. Up until today she hadn’t had any idea that cruise ships like this left from Baltimore. Every cruise she’d ever heard about required flying to Florida and boarding there. According to Donald, cruise liners had been coming up the eastern coast for passengers for the last three years.

  Entering the Promenade Deck, as the kind gentleman who helped her over the ramp and onto the ship called it, Rosie took in the luxurious surroundings. To her right was a magnificent winding staircase with royal blue carpeted steps. Beyond the customer service desk were signs pointing the way to Nautica Spa, High Rollers Casino, and Destiny Lounge.

  Directly ahead of her was the Promenade Balcony, where it seemed all the passengers were momentarily stranded. A crewmember approached them pulling a cart with their luggage securely strapped on, and directed them to follow him. Taking the elevator, they proceeded to their stateroom on the Verandah Deck.

  “Are you okay?” Donald asked when they stepped off the elevator and Rosie appeared star-struck again.

  “I’m fine. I’ve just never seen anything like this before.” Looking around, she noted that this floor, in bold contrast to the Promenade Deck, had been carpeted in bright canary yellow. The door to each room was painted a shimmering shamrock green, and the hallway glistened pearly white. “It’s all so festive,” she said.

  “It’s a fun cruise. This is all I could manage at short notice, but I didn’t think it would be too bad.” Stopping behind Cliff, the attendant, they waited for him to unlock the door.

  Once the door was opened, Rosie stepped in first. The room was decorated in more subtle tones—beige, rose and turquoise. Immediately to her right was the bathroom, which boasted a large tub and shower, a spacious sink and dressing table. Taking a few steps forward, she saw an oval-shaped bar with a twenty-seven inch television hanging above it.

  “We show first-run films in each room. There’s a guide over there on the table that will help you with programming,” Cliff informed them.

  Continuing her survey of the room, Rosie moved to the foot of a king-sized bed with a mirrored headboard that took up one wall. Opposite was a sliding glass door opening onto a balcony as long as the room.

  “So what do you think?” Donald asked when the attendant left. He took off his leather jacket and tossed it across the couch.

  “It’s a little overwhelming, maybe because it’s my first cruise.” Wringing her hands, she watched as Donald removed his tie and unbuttoned the top buttons on his shirt.

  “It’ll all sink in once we get moving.” Crossing the room to stand in front of her, he placed his large hands on her plump shoulders.

  “Please don’t say ‘sink.’ ” She rolled her eyes and rested her head against his chest. When she felt the rumbling of his laughter against her face, she had to chuckle herself.

  “Come on, let’s get unpacked. Then we can take the grand tour.”

  “Maybe we can just stay in our room,” Rosie suggested, her voice sultry. “It would be a shame to put such a big bed to waste.” Her arms encircled his waist to pull him closer.

  “I guess you have a good point there.” Moving his hands from her shoulders, he caressed her back, then slid his hands further down to grip her voluptuous bottom. “A very good point.”

  * * *

  Perched on the steps, Leah ripped the tape from a box marked photos. Lifting the cardboard flaps, she explored the contents. “I think we can safely assume we’re in Donald’s basement.” Her voice was bland as she flipped through the photographs.

  “Let me see.” Terrell abandoned the box he’d been going through to join her on the steps. He’d been looking for a crowbar, or something to wrench the door open, but so far all he’d found were pictures and real estate documents.

  Without so much as a glance in his direction she handed him a handful of pictures she’d already viewed. Donald was in almost every one. She didn’t recognize anyone else in the pictures. Some showed him with two younger women whose faces she’d seen repeatedly in the photos. She figured they might be the daughters that Nikki had told her about.

  Dropping the pictures she still held in her hand back into the box, she sat straight up and stretched. She arched back and lifted her arms above her head. “This is tiring.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Terrell watched the rise and fall of her breasts. His mouth went dry at the sight of the heavy mounds molding themselves against the cotton of her shirt. Continuing to flip through the pictures, he tried to concentrate on the people in them, or the people that weren’t in them, anything but the fact that with Leah he was trapped in this basement, which seemed to be getting smaller and smaller by the moment.

  “You didn’t find any tools over there, huh?” Unaware of the effect she was having on her fellow captive, Leah spoke calmly as she looked around the room to the pile of boxes Terrell had already gone through.

  “Nah, I didn’t see anything.” Terrell cleared his throat. “I did find some papers that I think might shed some light on the type of person we’re dealing with, though.” Dropping the pictures into the box, he crossed over to where he’d set a pile of papers he’d pulled from a file cabinet and came back to sit beside Leah. “It looks like Donald owns some property.” Tension crackled between them as they touched. Terrell focused on the papers and tried to ignore it.

  Leah closed her eyes and tried to ignore it.

  “Have you ever heard of Negril?”

  “Yeah. It’s in Jamaica and it’s becoming a pretty hot vacation spot. A lot of my clients go there on their honeymoon.” Opening her eyes, she looked down at the papers he held. “What are those? Deeds?”

  “Yeah, it looks like it. I guess he owns land in Negril.”

  “They’re dated within the last two years. Why would he buy property in Jamaica?”

  “Maybe he’s planning to relocate,” Terrell mentioned quietly.

  “Yeah, maybe.” Leah shrugged. Then his silence caught her attention and, taking a chance, she looked at him. He was no longer looking at the papers but was staring straight ahead, a blank expression on his face. No, not blank, she thought, sad.

  “What’s the matter?” Besides the obvious, she thought to herself.

  “I was just thinking that he’s probably planning to take my mother to Jamaica with him.”

  “And that would bother you?”

  “Of course it would bother me!” he yelled. “What kind of question is that? Would you want your mother living an ocean away from you?”

  “Actually—” She thought of Marsha and all her problems.

  “Never mind, you wouldn’t understand.” Gathering the papers into a neat stack, Terrell started to get up from the steps.

  “You’re right.” With her hand on his arm she stopped him. “Why don’t you explain it to me? I know that you love your mother. When I see you with her I know there’s nothing in this world you wouldn’t do to make her happy. What I don’t understand is why—before you found out all this about Mr. Donald—why you didn’t want her to get married.”

  She wouldn’t understand, he thought. He barely understood it himself. Still, he found himself preparing to tell her. He looked into her hazel eyes. “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah, I really want to know.” Placing her hand on his knee in what she meant as a purely innocent gesture to reassure him, she continued, “It might help you to talk it out with someone and, as it stands, I don’t have anywhere to be just now, so I’m all ears.”

  Her lips curved in a smile that both melted his heart and threatened to destroy him. “My father died when I was ten years old. He was killed in a car accident.”

/>   “I’m sorry,” she whispered and took his hand in hers.

  “So it’s been just me and Mama all these years. She was always telling me how she wanted me to make something of my life, to be successful…to be happy. So I went to college and I studied hard. I found my niche in computers and was offered a six-figure salary in my senior year. I figured this was the life meant for me—so I set out to live it.” The only thing missing was the family he’d wanted so desperately, but he wasn’t about to divulge that information.

  “Ms. Rosie’s really proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

  “I know. But she always cautioned me not to get too caught up in the success. I just wanted to make things better for her, to repay her for all that she’d done for me. I wanted to take care of her the way she took care of me.”

  Because she was curious, because her house had always been a revolving door for father figures, she asked, “Was it bad growing up?”

  He sensed the part of her question she’d omitted. “Without a father, you mean? Yeah, it was bad. We always seemed to have what we needed, but Mama worked and worked. I just knew that if Daddy had lived, things would have been much different. Mama and I are very close. We both shared the same tremendous loss the day my father died. I wanted to be the one to fix that for her.”

  “You can give her all the material things in the world, Terrell, but it won’t fill the gap that losing your father left. That’s not for you to fill.”

  Terrell frowned. Her words were true, but they made him seem like some perverted freak. “I never thought I could fill her husband’s shoes. I just wanted to make her comfortable so it wouldn’t hurt as much anymore.”

  Leah saw an opening to lighten the moment. “Oh, okay. For a minute there I thought…”

  He looked at her. “You did not.”

  Leah’s smile spread. “Of course I didn’t. I’m not stupid, I knew what you meant. But still, you can do only so much. And Mr. Donald seemed to give her what she needed at the moment. Were you really going to begrudge her that?”

  He shook his head adamantly. “No. I wasn’t. After I spent the weekend with them, saw how happy he made her, I really wanted it to happen—for her sake. Something just kept bothering me about him. I remembered his name from somewhere. Now I realize it was the papers. I found a huge stack of old clippings at the library that outlined the investigation into him and his business dealings a while back. I understand that she loves him and that even after I tell her this she probably still will, but I won’t let him hurt her. I won’t let him involve her in his illegal activities.”

  “For the record, this time and probably this time only,” she grinned as he looked at her with raised brows, “I think you’re right.”

  Their close proximity was quickly changing the moment to something more sensual and she was instantly uncomfortable. Not under these circumstances, she reminded herself. She’d thought that talking to him about his past would alleviate some of the sexual tension. Instead, it had brought her closer to the realization that he was one hell of a man. Everything he’d worked for, everything he wanted in life, took a second seat to protecting his mother.

  In a sense they were two of a kind. He was just as determined to protect his mother as she was to not repeat her mother’s mistakes.

  Because she felt she was reading way too much into their connection, she gently removed her hand from his knee and reached behind her head to free her hair from its ponytail.

  Leaning back, he rested his elbows on the step above and stared at the ceiling. He’d told her something he’d never uttered to another living soul, and it had been so easy. Keenly aware that she was sitting very close to him, he dared not look at her. The way he was feeling right now he just might start blubbering about his feelings for her.

  “It’s getting dark outside.” Looking down at his watch, he confirmed that it was evening. “Six o’clock. We’ve been down here probably about twelve hours now.”

  “I’m hungry.” Maybe that’s the true cause of the fluttering in my stomach.

  “There’s a deep freezer way back in the corner.” Rising from the steps, Terrell walked across the room. “And, I thought I saw…” His voice trailed off while Leah stood and stretched again.

  “You thought you saw what?” Hands on her hips, she watched him going from one corner to the next.

  “I thought I saw…yup, I did. Here it is.” Stooping down, he moved a box from atop a white surface. “A mini refrigerator,” he announced as he pulled open the door.

  “Who puts a mini refrigerator in their basement?” Leah asked as she joined him in his perusal of the refrigerator’s contents.

  “Maybe he worked down here late at night and got the urge for a snack. I don’t know, but there’s some bottled water, a carton of milk…” Putting the carton to his nose, he sniffed. Frowning copiously, he sat the carton to the side. “…That’s no good at all, but here’s an unopened pack of bologna and some Kraft singles.”

  With his bounty in hand he turned to Leah. “My dear, we have a feast.”

  “Yeah, a feast.” She tried to muster up her excitement. “I’m not a big bologna fan.” Opening the bottle of water, he handed it to her and she took a few big gulps.

  “Me either, but I’ll make the sacrifice.” Passing her the meat and cheese, Terrell grabbed some blankets that they’d thrown beside the boxes in their earlier search and began to spread them out on the floor. After putting three blankets on top of each other, he took a fourth one and rolled it into one long pillow. Then the last two he set to the side saying, “We’ll have to use these to cover us.”

  Leah watched him in silence. The makeshift bed was anything but encouraging, but she couldn’t help thinking of lying on it with Terrell.

  “Leah?” Terrell called her name again.

  “Hmmm?” she answered, her eyes never leaving the blankets on the floor.

  “Are you alright?” She looked funny, he thought, as if she were dreading something. Dreading sleeping next to him, he figured. The thought made him angry. He knew he was no Denzel Washington but damn, he wasn’t ugly and disgusting either. She was acting as if she expected him to rape her or something.

  He thought of taking half the blankets and moving to the other end of the room but the floor was cement—cold cement. Should he continue to be unsuccessful in finding a way out of here, they were going to need the cushioning, as well as the warmth, the trio of blankets layered on the floor would provide. So he quickly dismissed the idea of splitting the blankets just so she wouldn’t have to suffer lying next to him. She’d simply have to deal with it.

  “No. I’m fine.” Dropping to her knees, she began to pry the plastic wrapping from the bologna.

  Taking a seat across from her, he opened his bottled water, took a refreshing sip. “There’s a bathroom beneath the steps.”

  “Really? A bathroom?” She couldn’t imagine a bathroom being in such a limited space.

  “It’s just a toilet, but since we found the water, I’m sure it’ll come in handy.” His lips melted into a smile. Once he assured himself that she was comfortable he’d resume his search for an escape.

  “I’m sure it will.” When she removed the wrapping from the container she peeled off a slice of meat and held it out to him.

  Terrell, in turn, removed the wrapping from the cheese and held a slice out to her. The exchange was a sort of truce, both of them quietly accepting their circumstances and mutually agreeing to deal with them the best way they knew how.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Leah rolled her bologna and cheese into a log before taking a bite. In no way did it compare to a real meal, but it would have to suffice. At least she wouldn’t starve, she thought to herself.

  “Why did you roll it like that? Does it make it taste any better?”

  “Not really, but when I was a little girl my mother bought only bologna, I guess because it was cheaper than other lunch meats, and she had so many of us to feed.” She didn’t know why she’d a
dded that last statement, but shrugged, since it was already said. There was nothing she could do about it now. “Anyway, I didn’t like the taste of it, but if I didn’t eat what she prepared, then I didn’t eat. So I would roll it with the cheese, which was always sliced thicker than the bologna because we used to get the government allotment. That way, I’d taste more cheese than I did bologna. I’d fill my stomach and not get yelled at.”

  “Oh, I see.” He didn’t really. Since he didn’t have any siblings, food had never been rationed in his house. There had been times when it wasn’t his mother’s pay week and they’d had to eat leftovers two nights in a row, but Rosie always cooked more than enough for the two of them.

  “How many sisters and brothers do you have?” Mimicking her movements, he rolled his meat with his cheese and took a test bite.

  “I have four brothers, all of them younger. Two are still at home.”

  “That’s why you’re so bossy.” Terrell decided that the bologna was much easier to stomach when accompanied by the cheese, and took another bite. She was right again.

  “I’m not bossy,” she pouted. “I just know what I want.”

  “And what is it that you want, Miss Wedding Planner?” The last was said in a prissy, girlish voice that made her giggle.

  “I want my business to be successful.” Unaware that she was still smiling at him, she stretched out on the blanket on her stomach.

  “That’s all you want?” The bologna and cheese almost got stuck in his throat and he coughed. Did she have any idea how seductive she looked right at that moment? Her long legs, extending from a magnificently round bottom, stretched across the blanket. Her elbows were propped and supported the weight of her upper body. Her breasts hung low, brushing the blanket.

  “Yeah, for right now anyway. Why? What do you want?” She popped the last of her bologna concoction into her mouth and chewed.

  “We’re not talking about me.” At least not anymore. He’d told her enough already. “You don’t want to get married or have a family?” Finishing his bologna roll, he took another drink of water.